theatrical production

theatrical production, the planning, rehearsal, and presentation of a work. Such a work is presented to an audience at a particular time and place by live performers, who use either themselves or inanimate figures, such as puppets, as the medium of presentation. A theatrical production can be either dramatic or nondramatic, depending upon the activity presented.

While dramatic productions frequently conform to a written text, it is not the use of such a text but rather the fictional mimetic (from Greek mimēsis, “imitation,” “representation”) nature of the performer’s behaviour that makes a work dramatic. For example, a person walking a tightrope is performing an acrobatic act, whereas a person who pretends to be an acrobat walking a tightrope is performing a dramatic act. Both performers are engaged in theatrical presentation, but only the latter is involved in the creation of dramatic illusion. Though a dramatic performance may include dancing, singing, juggling, acrobatics, or other nondramatic elements, it is concerned mainly with the representation of actual or imagined life.

In nondramatic theatrical productions there is no imitation of “another existence” but simply the entertainment or excitation of the audience by the performer. Whether acrobatic or musical, gestural or vocal, such activity is theatrical because it is presented by a live performer to an audience, but it remains nondramatic so long as it has a purely presentational quality rather than a representational one.

In any single theatrical production, one or another type of activity may so prevail that there is little difficulty in determining the aesthetic nature of the final work. A play by the 19th-century Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen, with its depiction of middle-class behaviour, minimizes nondramatic activity; the recital of a song by the 19th-century Romantic composer Franz Schubert, by contrast, with its emphasis upon musical values, may ignore dramatic elements and, to a considerable extent, even the act of presentation itself. Between these two extremes, however, there are many types of theatrical production in which the aesthetic nature of the form is less simple. Opera, for example, employs both drama and music in shifting patterns of emphasis.

In Europe and the United States several forms arose in the 20th century that combine dramatic and nondramatic material. Vaudeville, or music hall, for instance, employs a succession of various acts, such as fictional sketches, musical and dance numbers, and feats of dexterity, of which some are representational and others are not. In the musical theatre, song and dance serve both to further the narrative and to provide a break from purely dramatic presentation. This variety also characterizes much Asian theatre, in which dramatic moments are elaborated in dance exhibitions. In light of these examples, the definition of what constitutes theatrical production must remain elastic.

Elements of theatrical production

According to the British director Peter Brook, theatre occurs whenever someone crosses neutral space and is watched by another person. This definition of theatre raises some problems, such as the difficulty of determining neutral space, but it is useful in its firm commitment to demystifying theatrical production. In former times the idea of the actor as motivated by a desire to create astonishment and wonder was sometimes seen as the basis of all theatre. Certainly there are types of theatrical performance that entail ritual and magic, but theatre is far more frequently rooted in attempts to structure emotion and experience.

Generally speaking, all theatrical productions have certain elements in common: the performer or performers, their acting in space (usually some sort of stage) and time (some limited duration of performance), and a producing process and organization. These elements are treated in separate sections below.

The performer

Skills and attributes

The work of the actor falls into five main areas: (1) the exhibition of particular physical, including vocal, skills; (2) the exhibition of mimetic skills, in which physical states and activities are simulated; (3) the imaginative exploration of fictitious situations; (4) the exhibition of patterns of human behaviour that are not natural to the actor; and (5) interaction, while engaging in these activities, with other actor-characters and with members of the audience.

At certain times in the history of Western theatre, the highest degree of physical skill has been associated with nondramatic performance. In Asian theatre, however, such distinctions do not apply. Chinese opera and Japanese drama require an actor to play one type of role for his entire professional life. The actor must play this role in a manner strictly determined by tradition, reproducing specific patterns of movement and speech that can be mastered only by first gaining control of complex physical skills. Later, if especially gifted, an actor may bring to a role certain refinements of the tradition, which may be handed down to a succeeding generation.

Western drama, however, does not usually provide the actor with quite so defined a repertoire of movements and utterances. It is true that actors in the Italian commedia dell’arte of the 16th to the 18th centuries specialized in one role and transmitted to their successors a body of situations, speeches, and lazzi (stage sketches, or routines). Nevertheless, they seem to have had more leeway than their Asian counterparts in exercising invention and personal expression. Great rhetorical skill has been demanded of the Western actor, for the intricate metrical patterns of Greek, Latin, French, English, and Spanish drama have been part of the glory of their respective theatres.

Naturalistic theatre, which flowered in the late 19th century, made rhetoric obsolete, requiring the actor to hide virtuoso performing skills by creating the illusion of everyday behaviour. This meant that more weight was given to the actor’s depictions of psychological attributes. The magnetism of a performance derived no longer from stylized behaviour but from intense personal revelation. This requires a marked ability to focus energies, to concentrate intently either upon the audience directly or upon a fellow actor and, thereby, indirectly upon the audience. All good actors can project a concentrated force, or “presence,” which has become increasingly important to the actor as set patterns of playing have disappeared. Presence is not a fixed, definable quality but rather a process of continuous growth and change that takes place before the eyes of the audience.

Relation to the audience

In nondramatic theatre the performer generally acknowledges the presence of the audience and may even play directly to it. In dramatic theatre the actor may or may not do so. In GreekOld Comedy, for example, an actor speaking for the author might cajole, advise, or challenge the spectators. By contrast, the naturalistic actor plays as though a “fourth wall” closes off the room of the stage. Between these two extremes fall a variety of relationships. In some instances, although direct contact is made, the audience is itself assumed to be playing a role, as in trial plays in which the audience is treated as a jury or as spectators in the court of justice. In other instances, the actor may address the audience one moment and play as though there were a fourth wall the next.

The quality of the contact between performer and audience is subtly modified by the nature of the performer’s place and role in society. In the broadest terms, the performer may be seen as a celebrant, servant, or critic of society. As a celebrant, the actor performs an almost priestly function, and in certain types of production the actor may in fact be a priest. In such instances, the actor mediates between the audience and the divine or spiritual dimension. In Greek tragedy, Japanese Noh theatre, and medieval mystery plays, the actions of the performers have both a religious and dramatic significance, but this is by no means always the case.

More often the actor has been a servant, akin to the household retainer or court jester. In classical Rome, for example, actors were slaves or lowly freedmen. In ElizabethanEngland the actor was nominally the protégé of a powerful courtly patron, but, if he lacked patronage, he was legally considered a rogue and vagabond. Such performers, as servants or inferiors, necessarily approached their audiences in supplicatory terms. However, with the growth of the commedia dell’arte companies, which were established on a commercial basis, the relationship between the performer and the audience changed into one of producer and consumer.

In the late 18th and 19th centuries, with the flourishing of the Romantic movement and the rise of nationalist consciousness throughout Europe, the actor as rebel began to appear. The role of the theatre was then a powerful one; actors learned to utilize the material of the play, even of classic works, to make political statements. Later, in the 20th century, the traditional boundaries between actors and spectators were broken down, and the performer became in some cases a virtual assailant of the audience. The Living Theatre, formed in 1947 in New York City by Julian Beck and Judith Malina, engaged the audience in direct personal and physical contact. In the 1970s, Augusto Boal of Brazil developed the theatre of the oppressed, in which performance was intended to serve the triple function of entertainment, education, and consciousness-raising. Similar techniques found wide use in the 1970s and ’80s in such movements as feminist theatre, homosexual theatre, black theatre, prison theatre, theatre of the deaf, theatre of the handicapped, and theatre of the aged.

Another aspect of the dramatic performer’s work has to do with the portrayal of characters, both as individuals and as types. In portraying an individual character, the performer adopts a fictional framework and acts according to the text’s demands. When playing Macbeth, for instance, he behaves “as if” he sees the phantom dagger referred to in the text. In many roles, however, the actor must work within established categories of stock types. Roman comedy, for instance, utilized a limited number of stock characters, such as the cunning slave, the passionate young lover, and the suspicious old father. The king, the wise counselor, the raging tyrant are examples derived from historical and biblical sources; the leading man, the juvenile, the ingenue, and the villain are examples from theatrical tradition itself.

While stock types stress those features of personality common to all human beings, naturalistic, or “slice-of-life,” drama seeks to individualize each role. This requires that the actor as well as the author draw from personal observation and experience. With the rise of dramatic realism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there arose corresponding theories of acting, notably those of Konstantin Stanislavsky, director of the Moscow Art Theatre. While an actor of this period might start with a generalized “type” (a country doctor, for example), efforts during rehearsal were bent on differentiating this doctor from any other. This style of acting demanded extensive preparation, with rehearsal periods of up to a year.

Realistic acting raises questions about the relation between the actor and the role performed: Does the actor merely simulate behaviour, or does he in some sense actually experience the passions and thoughts of the character? Central to the actor’s art though this question is, it has never been satisfactorily answered. The clearest statements of the problem were rendered in Denis Diderot’s essay Paradoxe sur la comédien (written 1773, published 1830; The Paradox of Acting) and subsequent commentary by William Archer in Masks or Faces (1888).

Celebratory performance marking the opening of the Globe Theatre in London, June 12, 1997.ROTA/APPerformer and audience exist together in a common area, within which there is a clearly delineated performing space (ring, stage platform, pit) and an audience space, the two structurally related. Some of the more common patterns of relationship are (1) an amphitheatre, with a bank of spectators half surrounding a playing area; (2) a circle of spectators standing or sitting around a ring in which the performance takes place; and (3) rows of seated spectators facing a raised platform. Theatre space is often associated with a special building, but this has not always been the case, nor is it always the case in modern times. Often theatre space has embraced a town square or even an entire town so that performers and audience are able to mingle. Modern attempts to create a space within which the distinction between performer and audience is blurred (called environmental theatre) echo earlier examples from the popular theatre.

Isolation of the performer

Almost all productions (the so-called happenings of the 1960s and guerrilla theatre are notable exceptions) endeavour to achieve two basic aims. First, every production seeks to impart a special quality to the theatrical area. Use of a theatrical building may in itself provide a heightened sense of locale. Otherwise, special decoration of familiar locales (town, market square) may transform them into ceremonial or festive spaces. Next, every production tries to make the performer visible and audible to the audience. On flat ground the circle or ring has often proved best. In hilly country the amphitheatre is the readiest solution. When a playing area is to be permanent, some means of raising the performer above the level of the crowd is often introduced, such as boards laid over trestles. The degree to which the performer is to be isolated depends partly on how complete and detailed a view of the presentation the audience expects.

The isolation of the performer has, however, another property. Marking out a playing area was in early antiquity an activity connected with religion. In classical Greece, for instance, the altar of the god Dionysus was surrounded by a circle for dancing. This was the origin of the performance space. Even when the direct religious tie was broken, stepping into the ring or onto the stage still marked a passage into another world. This is equally true of the sawdust ring of the circus and the bare boards of the trestle stage. Some traditional theatres, especially those of Asia, still regard the act of preparing to go on stage (putting on makeup, for instance) as sacred. Because of this, the isolation of the actor is spiritual almost as much as physical.

In dramatic production the magical property with which a performing area is invested is augmented by the fictional action of the drama. The stage becomes another locale by an act of imagination undertaken by both actors and audience. The illusion of place may be created simply by speech: at the opening of a scene in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, for instance, one of the characters asks, “What country, friends, is this?” and is told, “This is Illyria, lady.” It may be created visually, by the designer’s ingenuity; the audience sees a room or a garden, and its attention is fixed on this imaginary setting, while its consciousness of the stage as a performing space becomes secondary. Alternately, it may be established through sound: crickets or birds evoke a garden as clearly as a visual image.

In some productions, especially those inspired by the antinaturalistic theories of the Russian director Vsevolod Meyerhold, the audience is constantly reminded that it is in a theatre. Realist productions, in contrast, following the principles of Stanislavsky, encourage a clear distinction between performing area and viewing area. On the other hand, the theatre has often reconciled the contradictory elements of dramatic space. Renaissance masques combined the actor’s platform with a more public dancing circle, to which there was ready access from the seats. The 18th-century English stage moved out from a recessed picture of a representational locale to a projecting apron that merged with the auditorium. In both examples, the theatre found a physical convention for mediating between actor and audience.

Time likewise has a dual character in drama. The performer and audience exist together in chronological time. But the actor as character exists in dramatic time. Neoclassical drama of the 17th century, especially in France, endeavoured to make the duration of the performance coincide with that of the play’s action. But, as a rule, drama has achieved its effects by accentuating the discrepancy between “real” and “illusory” time.

On one hand, the performer projects a sequence of activity upon which the audience concentrates intensely. Because it is difficult to maintain full attention over very long periods, it must be modulated; that is, stimulated, relaxed, and stimulated again. These contrasts and suspense make the real time spent at a performance absorbing and deeply felt. This experience is heightened by the illusion that another time scheme is also operating, that of the fictional event. Some drama gains its effects by suggesting that chronological and dramatic time differ between, but not within, scenes; that is, months may pass between Act I and Act II of Three Sisters by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, but within any act the dramatic time scale is the same as the chronological one. Shakespeare, however, presents a scene in Othello (Act II, scene 2) that takes about 25 minutes to play, yet during this scene an entire night supposedly passes. One of the most extensive temporal schemes in drama is to be found in the medieval cycles of miracle plays, which unfolded over a period of two to four days and which covered the history of the universe from a time before Genesis to the Day of Judgment yet to come. Indian and Indonesian performances of the epics Mahabharata and Ramayana may last for up to a day.

In contrast to this ambitious inclusion of all time is the handling of time in Japanese Noh theatre, in which real time, with its inevitable passage, is retarded to create a sensation of timelessness. The deliberate pace of the performer, the reiteration of the drum, and the unchanging facade of the stage add to this impression. During the second half of the 20th century, the American Robert Wilson devised performances that lasted through the night. In these circumstances, the tension that results from expectation and that directs the mind to anticipate events and outcomes is dissipated, the spectator tires, and the mind fluctuates between waking and half-sleeping states in which the events on the stage mingle with mental fantasies to produce a new mode of consciousness.

The piece and its performance

Preparation of content

Traditionally the dramatic piece has been planned in advance and rehearsed, although there are degrees of advance planning and rehearsal. Even the supposedly impromptu performances of the commedia dell’arte players could not take place without detailed preparation beforehand. In much dramatic theatre advance planning involves the preparation of a written script, sometimes prepared by a dramatist and sometimes created by the actors themselves in collaboration with each other or with a writer. The script thus may be either a tentative scenario or a finished blueprint of the final presentation (a playtext).

Whether scenario or playtext, a piece consists of segments of activity arranged in a meaningful sequence. More often than not this is a narrative sequence, and thus each segment of activity presents a step in the unfolding of a story. But the sequence may also be based on a common motif or recurrent characters. The segments of activity, usually termed episodes or scenes, can include many kinds of behaviour—e.g., persuasion of one person by another, delivery of a speech, singing of a song, hand-to-hand combat.

Theatrical tradition and social practice largely determine the scope of the material to be presented. In ancient Greece, for example, myths often provided the material for tragedy, with debate, lamentation, prophecy, and choral comment constituting the main activities. In other traditions, storytelling, singing, acrobatics, and speeches are the ingredients. The dramatist, manager, and actor all operate within the context of performing routines and production conditions. Material drawn from other arts and from personal experiences may also be used.

Performing the piece

The occasion affects the manner in which the actor addresses the audience or represents a character; it also influences his physical appearance. In Japanese Noh theatre and ancient Greek drama, the actor is often transformed by costume into a superhuman figure. Raised headdresses, painted or masked faces, enveloping robes all contribute to the creation of a figure endowed with symbolic significance. In some societies, the actor is viewed not as a hero or demigod but as the epitome of contemporary society; elsewhere, the actor is a quixote, a member of a low class whose convincing impersonations unsettle concepts of order and rationality.

Although the actor is the focus of attention while performing, the preparatory and rehearsal phases tend to be organized by others. While in the Renaissance the actors themselves were in control of all phases of production, at other times they have been under the control of theatre managers and stage directors. A significant part of the alternative theatre movement in the mid-20th century was an attempt on the part of actors to establish a collective organization and to reclaim a share of power in the process of making theatre.

The importance of stage scenery is determined by the degree to which either the auditorium or playing area needs to be transformed for a performance. Four possibilities exist: little or no change is introduced into either area (as in the Elizabethan public theatre); the playing area remains unaltered while the audience area is changed (as in erecting banks of seating in a town square); the playing area is changed while the audience area remains fixed (as in proscenium theatre, in which a frame or arch separates the stage from the auditorium); or both areas are transformed (as in Renaissance court theatre or some contemporary theatrical productions).

The fixed playing space often has emblematic significance. In Japan, the Noh stage has three pine trees symbolizing heaven, Earth, and man, and on the Kabuki stage the right-hand side is more eminent than the left. The Elizabethan playhouse used trap doors to signify transit from Earth to heaven or hell. The practice of changing the visual and physical arrangement of the playing area became widespread in Europe during the Renaissance. At first, designers devised generalized scenery to be used for tragic, comic, and pastoral dramas. Later they created a setting unique to a particular play. With the emergence of designed space and changeable scenery, there arose an entire profession of scenic architects and mechanics whose work at times overshadowed that of the actors in importance. By the 20th century the designer’s task had become so complex that it was usually divided among scenic, costume, and lighting personnel and involved technicians, electricians, stagehands, prop masters, wardrobe keepers, and many others working together.

No single pattern for production exists, since there are too many social and personal variables at work. Certain broad observations can be made, however. First, any production is normally part of a more continuous enterprise. The continuity may be provided by the civic or religious life of the community, the stable associations of an acting troupe, or the permanence of a producer’s office.

Next, the production process tends to be either cooperative or hierarchical. The company for which Shakespeare wrote and to which he belonged seems to have been a collective. It remained for more than 25 years a community of professional associates and friends. More usual is the hierarchical organization, in which a single individual controls a production. In most instances, the professional specialty of that leader is dictated by the conditions of the particular theatre in which he works. In 17th-century France, for instance, the leader virtually had to be an actor (Molière was an actor turned actor-manager-dramatist). In the commercial theatre of the 20th-century United States he virtually had to be an impresario.

Finally, the mode of planning and rehearsing a production may be influenced by the artistic concept of an individual or a group. As long as theatre was part of a continuing tradition, its mode of production varied little, being conditioned partly by the social role of theatre and partly by the type of material the actor performed. Thus, the actor who played one type of role for an entire professional life concentrated on perfecting recurrent stage routines, while the actor who handled many different roles within a brief season had to be more adaptable.

During the 19th century there evolved new theories of production that affected both styles of performance and methods of rehearsal. Gradually, the idea of ensemble arose, stressing harmony of ideal and craft among what was usually a small group of actors in order to achieve a unity of effect. These ideas necessitated the careful orchestration of all elements of production. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the dominant element was the star actor; it then became the star ensemble (the Moscow Art Theatre, for instance) and, through the ensemble, the director.

Aspects of theatrical production

The development of international communications has had its effect on the theatre. The advent of railway and steamship travel in the 19th century led to an increase in international touring by theatre companies, and performers such as the French actress Sarah Bernhardt and the Italian operatic tenor Enrico Caruso became as well known in North and South America as in Europe. In the 20th century the cinema, radio, and television and video recording extended even further the range of potential audiences for theatrical performances. In the 1960s the Living Theatre inspired a generation of performers throughout the world, and Jerzy Grotowski’s Polish Laboratory Theatre influenced performers who had never been to Europe or seen him work firsthand. International theatre festivals that brought together performers from many varied traditions were regular occurrences by the end of the 20th century.

Types of production

Numerous forms of spectacle, such as dramatic and nondramatic pageants, the circus, son et lumière, and gymnastic presentations, are closely allied with theatre and indeed are considered by some classifications to be theatrical.

Nondramatic pageantry includes civic processions, such as parades, as well as static displays, such as gymnastic demonstrations. The appeal of nondramatic pageantry lies in coordinated visual spectacle. The performer is presented as a member of the collective, and, even where one individual may stand out, such as the parade “royalty,” he is essentially passive and wins attention merely as the focal point of a number of performers. In certain religious pageants the focal figure is not a living person at all but the icon or statue of a god or saint.

Dramatic pageantry has much in common with the nondramatic: both have communal involvement, stress on visual display, processional or static masses, and fictional or allegorical characters. Segments of the pageant may illustrate a historical or legendary incident, or the pageant as a whole may have a historical, mythical, or allegorical theme. Performers in the United States reenacting the dumping of tea into Boston Harbor exemplify historical pageantry; in England the assault on the Castle of Beauty by Knights of the Mount of Love, a pageant celebrating the marriage of Prince Arthur to Catherine of Aragon in 1501, exemplifies the allegorical type common at Renaissance courts. Pageantry of both the dramatic and nondramatic sort continues to play a significant role in the legitimization of political actions and the assertion of social prestige.

Nondramatic theatre

Nondramatic productions include diverse oral and musical presentations, circus and vaudeville acts, sporting displays, and ceremonial occasions such as the coronation of a monarch. There is no narrative line in such productions, but the technical virtuosity of the performers or the ritual significance of the event becomes the focus of audience attention. There may be the element of catharsis (purging), which Aristotle identified as the aim of tragedy. As a form of presentation, the circus encompasses a wide range of different types of performance, including feats of daring, illusion, and skill. The type of circus performance that comes closest to dramatic theatre is that of clowns. The clown engages in simplified and circumscribed dramatic activity, sometimes a ludicrous parody of other forms of performance, but one that follows established conventions of dress, gesture, and behaviour.

In the latter part of the 20th century, boundaries between types of theatrical production became increasingly eroded. So-called third theatre companies often used circus training techniques, and actors employed juggling and acrobatic skills in their dramatic performances. In the 1980s the Footsbarn company began traveling the world in a manner reminiscent of the medieval and Renaissance players, with productions of Shakespeare that used circus imagery and techniques. Samuel Beckett used the image of the clown in Waiting for Godot to create a parable on the absurdity of the human predicament, perhaps in direct quotation of vaudeville traditions.

Cabaret and vaudeville shows also bring together different types of performance, such as music and dancing, dramatic sketches, feats of daring, and illusion. These productions can take place in any kind of theatre or in nightclubs and restaurants, since staging requirements are usually minimal. It is possible to see this kind of performance as deriving directly from the street entertainers of folk culture and from the entertainments that took place between courses during medieval court banquets.

Dramatic theatre

The most common form of dramatic theatre is the presentation of a scripted play in which the actions of the performers depict a narrative. Typically, performers of such works consist of actors portraying characters, although Sicilian Paladin puppets, Javanese wayang shadow puppets, and Japanese Bunraku puppets are examples of nonliving representations of characters, manipulated by living performers.

In some forms of dramatic production, music and dance may provide or supplement the narrative content. Opera inhabits a special region between drama and music and has prompted much discussion as to the relative importance of literary and musical elements in advancing opera’s dramatic aspects. The musical development of opera predominated in the 17th and 18th centuries, whereas new works and productions since Richard Wagner in the late 19th century have increasingly emphasized dramatic features. Opera is often the site of the greatest innovation in the visual arts of the theatre, attracting ambitious directors and designers who see its aesthetic (and budgets) as appropriate to spectacular experimentation. Operetta and musical comedy are often seen as more closely allied to the theatre than to opera (seetheatre music and opera).

Over the course of the 20th century, the musical, which developed out of the operetta and musical comedy as an indigenous American theatrical genre, became a powerful art form in its own right. Beginning with Oscar Hammerstein and Jerome Kern’s Show Boat in 1927 and proceeding by way of the Rogers and Hammerstein musicals to the work of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, the musical exhibited a growing sophistication and maturity in both themes and techniques. The modern musical integrates singing, dancing, and acting to a degree that no other Western theatre form attempts. It is usually the most expensive (and potentially remunerative) genre in contemporary theatre.

Dance theatre

While dance usually is recognized as an art in its own right, it sometimes shares so many features with the theatre that it is difficult to distinguish the two. Dance figured strongly in the early development of drama in the West and remains an essential feature of African and Asian drama.

Dance theatre, combining elements of dramatic presentation and dance, may be considered a separate art form. Originally this type of performance was predominantly American, though the term Tanztheater (“dance theatre”) was adopted by an independent theatre founded in Wuppertal, W.Ger., in the mid-1970s by Pina Bausch. Bausch, who sought to break down the traditional boundaries between theatrical forms by melding movement, environment, fragmented narrative, and sound, was one of the most innovative performers in European theatre in the 1980s.

Mime remains closely connected to drama, being merely a highly specialized form of enactment. Relying on movement without words, it enjoyed an immense vogue in imperial Rome, contributed to the style of commedia dell’arte, and underwent a revival in the latter half of the 20th century at the hands of such French performers as Jean-Louis Barrault and Marcel Marceau. While dramatic actors are often taught the elements of mime, as a performance practice it remains a distinct entity.

Systems of production

Since planning, rehearsal, and performance are common to all theatrical productions, the various systems of organizing and conducting these activities provide a useful set of production classifications.

The single performance

Single or limited performance of a presentation, as part of institutional or communal life, has been fairly common throughout the history of the theatre. The Greek city-state (polis), the medieval town, the Japanese temple, and the American high school are but a few of the bodies that have typically sponsored such dramatic performances. The Greek city-state and the medieval town organized their productions in a strikingly similar way, with the municipality exercising control. Until at least the 4th century bce, however, the Athenians presented new plays every year, whereas the medieval townspeople annually reenacted the same plays or variations of them. Yet in both systems many aspects of production were the same from year to year so that, single performance notwithstanding, each individual offering relied upon an established tradition.

Detail of a design by Inigo Jones for a procession in The Masque of Augures by Ben Jonson, 1622; in the Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, Eng.Reproduced by permission of the Trustees of the Chatsworth SettlementThis was less true of the Renaissance court masque (an allegorical dramatic performance featuring music and especially dancing), which was also presented only once. Although each production belonged to a tradition of courtly entertainment, masques of the 16th and 17th centuries became increasingly lavish and novel. A court official was responsible for the overall piece, much in the manner of the later theatre manager or entrepreneur. It was he who recommended a dramatic poet to provide the text, hired the actors, made arrangements for stage scenery, and approved the results before offering them to the sovereign. The most fundamental distinction between this kind of production and earlier institutional types is that the masque was devised to the taste and at the will of one person, the monarch or another honoured figure.

The permanent company

The development of a production system depending on a permanent company introduced a new element into theatre—professional virtuosity. The emergence of professional theatre companies was a feature of Renaissance urbanization. Various courts had maintained performers throughout the medieval period, but these were usually musicians or single performers. With the emergence of the town, the theatre company began to appear throughout Italy, France, Germany, England, and Spain, usually consisting of between five and 16 actors who devoted their lives to their craft.

Initially, the company was obliged to tour, since neither court nor city could employ full-time professionals. During times of plague or other interdicts against acting or assembly, companies also traveled. As a result, the actors became accustomed to performing in all kinds of places: halls, outdoor platforms, chapels, and village greens. To compensate for the lack of scenery, the actors used a rich array of costumes—some traditional for recurrent characters or situations, some opulent for their own sake. At all times the actors kept a number of plays in their repertoire so that they could either mount a new play at each performance during an extended stay in one place or repeat plays on request. When a troupe finally settled in one city, it continued this mode of presentation, and thus the stock system was born.

Some permanent troupes performed pieces in which each actor portrayed a stock figure. Italian commedia dell’arte and Japanese Kabuki theatre both utilized such types. Molière, though as a dramatist far less rigid in portraying stock types, led a company each of whose members specialized. English and Spanish troupes, however, because of the demands of the plays, used actors who were much more flexible. The English and Spanish playwrights used a much wider range of characters in their episodic plays, and actors were required to play more than one role in productions. Otherwise, the companies had a great deal in common. Actors bought plays from writers, hired any supporting personnel they needed, and took the profits. Usually, the performers worked on a share system, dividing the proceeds among themselves.

Commercial management

The repertory troupe eventually came to be managed by an individual; the actor-manager was in his heyday from the late 18th to the early 20th century. As an employer, he was concerned less with the welfare of the actor and more with the profit he could extract from the public. Gradually, out of this change emerged the stock company and the single-show association. The stock company was an acting troupe usually managed and organized for a limited season to give a number of plays. Sometimes the manager would take the leading roles and engage others in support; otherwise, he would hire all the performers. The major shift in mode of production came when the stock companies stopped presenting plays in repertory and extended the run of a single play. This happened when city populations grew large enough to keep one play running for an indefinite time. At the end of the 17th century, a London play that ran for eight performances was deemed a success. In 1728, however, a production of John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera made theatrical history by running for 62 performances. By the mid-20th century, successful productions might run for several years. In London The Mousetrap, a dramatization of a thriller by Agatha Christie, ran for more than 50 years.

With the extended run there was little need to maintain a company of actors, even for a season. Instead, single-show contracts were negotiated for actors, stage managers, scenic artists, a host of associates, and a theatre. Since a play was to be repeated indefinitely, it was feasible to invest more money in the accoutrements. Out of this system developed the need for an overall supervisor. At first, the manager or actor-manager undertook this task. Later, individuals specializing in this work appeared. As the play acquired commercial importance, the role of the dramatist changed so that by the 20th century the name of the dramatist had become a significant factor in selling a production, as had that of the director in some instances.

The modern repertory company

During the rise of the stock company and single-show system, there continued to exist highly refined examples of the repertory ensemble. The Comédie Française, originally an amalgamation of two Parisian troupes, has existed since 1680. In opera the repertory system operated on a global basis at the turn of the 21st century, as singers performed their prized roles in a great variety of venues on very short-term contracts. Toward the end of the 19th century, however, a widespread transformation of the acting ensemble and the repertory system it supported occurred throughout Europe. New theatres, devoted to realist staging, were successfully established, and these, in time, became civic theatres supported by the state.

Particularly famous among repertory companies are the Moscow Art Theatre and the Berliner Ensemble; others include the Abbey Theatre of Ireland, the Royal Shakespeare Company of the United Kingdom, and the Théâtre National Populaire of France. In Japan, the traditional Kabuki and Noh theatres have been declared national treasures. All of these theatres, because of government subsidy, maintain large staffs of actors, directors, designers, and other artists and craftsmen. Production is continuous. New plays or, more often, revivals of old plays enter the repertoire, while former productions are dropped. The works of major national authors receive regular performance, thus establishing the main lines of tradition for the company. Sometimes these repertory troupes conduct schools for training young people who might then enter the company. Often, they operate a main stage plus one or more small theatres where new and more experimental plays and styles are tried.

Other systems

Besides these systems of production there are several forms known collectively as alternative theatre and later as third theatre. The impulses for the alternative theatre arose in the mid-1960s from a sense of dissatisfaction with traditional theatre, in terms of both its repertoire and its production methods and hierarchical structures. Known variously as underground, experimental, guerrilla, Off-Broadway (or Off-Off Broadway), or fringe theatre, these nontraditional forms became widespread in the general climate of youthful political involvement throughout the Western world. In the United States, the civil rights movement of the early 1960s and the peace campaigns of the Vietnam War era resulted in the formation of a large number of innovative companies. Notable among these groups were the San Francisco Mime Troupe, Bread and Puppet Theatre, and El Teatro Campesino. The San Francisco Mime Troupe revived commedia dell’arte techniques in their politically motivated street performances. El Teatro Campesino invented the acto in an attempt to create a specifically Chicano (Mexican American) theatre. Many of their early performances took place on the picket lines during the California agricultural workers’ strikes in the 1960s. Later, El Teatro Campesino explored Chicano mythology and history, inventing the mito, a form of ritualized exchange between performers. The debt of the alternative theatre groups to the earlier agitprop groups is immense.

As political ferment diminished in the early 1970s, many of the groups began to explore new directions. Members of the Living Theatre in the United States and the Polish Laboratory Theatre, as well as the Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium in Holstebro, Den., and other groups in North America and Europe, lived cooperatively, shared a common view of life, and sought to reflect that view in their productions. This shared life is superficially reminiscent of the touring troupe, but the endeavour to achieve a company ethos is closer to the religious motive of an earlier day. Feminist theatres arising in the 1970s also experimented with breaking down the assigned roles of writer, designer, and technician. In most cases this idealism was abandoned for pragmatic reasons and as artists discovered their métiers.

Means of artistic control

While communal theatres exercise collective control of production, artistic control has traditionally rested with a single member of the production company.

Actor domination

Perhaps the supreme example of the actor-dominated production can be found in the commedia dell’arte tradition. Not only did the actor have financial and administrative control over production, but the very quality of performance was woven almost wholly out of the actor’s art. At first, in the 16th century, the commedia troupe consisted of traveling actors; by the 17th century many of them had found permanent residence at the courts of Italy and elsewhere in Europe. Each actor had a special role (Arlecchino, Pantalone, Brighella, and the inamorato, or lover, among others) with its attendant set speeches and traditional business. The young would learn the tradition appropriate to a role and, if talented, embroider upon that tradition. Thus prepared, the actors would improvise a presentation on the thread of a story selected by the troupe leader. Scenarios of commedia dell’arte plays did exist, but they were only pale shadows of the production itself, which came to life only in performance.

Other actor-dominated theatres include the Elizabethan theatre, Chinese opera, and Kabuki. In these instances, however, the blending of administrative control and artistic preeminence did not go so far as in the commedia dell’arte. The Elizabethan professional company, for example, had a production system that was based upon actor control of the repertory, but the artistic character of the work was determined by the plays that were presented. However fine the actor’s art, the dramatist’s contribution was paramount.

During certain periods the work of the dramatist, regardless of his subsequent involvement, determined the creative process in production. In ancient Greece the selection of a play was the first step in production. In the 19th and 20th centuries the acquisition of a script was also the preliminary step in establishing the single-show association. Only occasionally, as in the court theatre at Weimar, of which Johann Wolfgang von Goethe took charge during the late 18th century, did the dramatist take responsibility for establishing and conducting the theatrical enterprise. Rarely has the dramatist dominated a production system, unless, as occurred with Molière, he was also an actor. A notable exception was the German playwright Bertolt Brecht.

In imperial Rome, the dominus gregis (manager of the festivals at which theatrical performances were given) controlled the lives and probably the art of the Roman comedians. During the 18th century the theatrical actor-manager came into prominence. But it was in the 19th century, with the rise of the stage director, that artistic and, in large measure, administrative control passed into the hands of a nonperformer.

The stage director was responsible for modulating the acting, correlating the animate and inanimate aspects of production, and creating a single effect that inevitably became the expression of his own genius. At the beginning of the 20th century, the British theorist Edward Gordon Craig carried the ideal of unity even further by recommending the merger of director and scenic designer and advocating the reduction of actors to automatons completely responsive to the director-designer’s vision.

The designer’s rise to special importance had begun during the Renaissance. In the first half of the 17th century, the architect and designer Inigo Jones was the driving force behind the elaborate productions of the English court masque, while the stage machinery of Nicola Sabbatini and the designs of Giacomo Torelli exerted considerable influence in Italy and France.

A special theatrical form in which one person typically functions as manager, designer, and director is the puppet show. A puppet is any inanimate figure manipulated by a human being. The figure may be a three-dimensional hand-operated or body-operated puppet, either miniature or approaching life size; a two-dimensional shadow puppet manipulated by means of sticks; or a string-operated three-dimensional puppet, called a marionette. All types share a common aesthetic principle whereby their movement in a highly restricted space creates the illusion of lifelikeness. In some cultures, such as the Javanese and the Turkish, the puppet show has been a major theatrical form. In Japan the Bunraku doll theatre commands a respect and a following comparable to those accorded the traditional live-actor theatres. In fact, many plays of the prominent writer Chikamatsu Monzaemon were written originally for the puppet theatre.

Aims and functions

It is generally believed that drama emerged from religious ritual. At what precise point ritual became drama is uncertain, but formal drama is first known from ancient Greece.

Certainly, religious festivals gave rise to dramatic expression by reenacting the passion and trials of the god or demigod on whom the religion centred. In Christian Europe, biblical plays became attached to particular festivities, notably the Feast of Corpus Christi. Similarly, the story of the assassination of the 7th-century Shīʿite hero al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, was enacted at the Muslim festival of taʿziyah. As in ancient Greece, these festivals extended over many days and involved the whole community. In the 20th and 21st centuries, as popes and other religious leaders traveled around the world to address the faithful, huge outdoor ceremonies became the norm, often with staging and lighting effects borrowed from the commercial theatre. In many African cultures, the sanctity of dance and music is linked to performance rites of all kinds.

Initially, any educational aims of theatre were subsumed under its religious aims. But with the growth of educational institutions in the Renaissance came student productions, such as the commedia erudita often performed at universities. A play might be enacted to cultivate appreciation of its literary qualities, to celebrate a graduation, or to commemorate a national holiday. At first these productions were communal in character and occasional in presentation. Then, for brief periods in Elizabethan and Jacobean England, school and choral masters endeavoured to turn this communal activity into a commercial operation by utilizing boys as professional actors. Subsequently, the stigma against professional performing ensured that the educated classes were more likely to know the dramatic repertoire through reading than through enactment.

Early in the 20th century, the educational philosophy of the dancer Isadora Duncan inspired a new emphasis on education in the theatre. Duncan, drawing inspiration from ancient Greece, sought to free dance from the strictures of classical ballet. Her work in teaching, along with that of Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, the Swiss founder of eurythmics, provided the cornerstone for educational dance. Children were given dance classes to develop both physical ability and self-expression.

The practice of producing school plays goes back at least to the Elizabethan period in England, when it was used to train pupils in rhetorical skills. In the 20th century a range of alternative activities emerged under the heading of “drama in education.” As such classes exist today, they generally have no direct performance aim and do not make a distinction between performer and audience. Classes can pursue a variety of aims: physical development, self-dramatization and self-expression, the dynamics of group relationships, role-playing, decision making, and fantasy exploration to develop the imagination. Some work has been done to bring drama into the centre of the school curriculum and to use its flexible methods as a medium for teaching other subjects, such as language skills.

Drama has also been used to enable psychiatric patients to reveal and objectify their mental traumas. Drama therapy, or psychodrama, employs theatre to promote healing rather than to analyze.

After 1950 many dramatic techniques were utilized in an entirely new area called theatre for development. Theatre has been used, primarily in the developing world, to foster literacy programs, population planning campaigns, and agricultural development programs. In Indonesia, for example, wayang shadow puppets have been used, with the content of traditional plays altered to include family planning messages. In some projects, theatre programs are prepared using villagers as consultants regarding content effectiveness.

Commercial

Theatre as a purely economic enterprise can be traced to the Renaissance, when there developed a professional theatre of the marketplace. Productions were offered in large population centres or were taken to villages and towns where a potential audience already existed. With a shift from theatre devised for an independently existing occasion to speculative theatre, seeking to create its own occasion, there is a shift from a communal to a cosmopolitan audience. Instead of presenting plays at times that inherently hold sacred or civic meaning and, therefore, draw together the entire populace, commercial companies present plays with some frequency in order to attract a public large enough to support them. Instead of fulfilling a preordained social purpose, the commercial theatre has to justify itself and persuade people to attend by providing novelty and entertainment.